


Enterprise University

by cable69



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 22:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5392313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cable69/pseuds/cable69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the students around him were wearing suits or carrying honest-to-God briefcases. Jim stared at them. He didn’t think he’d ever seen somebody in Iowa carry a briefcase non-ironically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enterprise University

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on ff.net; unedited.
> 
> Unfinished!

Cil ke seivent de lettuüre,  
Devreint bien mettre cure  
Es bons livres e escriz  
E as essamples e as diz  
Ke li philosophe troverent  
E escristrent e remembrerent.

—Marie de France, Fables

x

(Opening file… Please wait… File opened!

Name: Kirk, James Tiberius  
Age: 18  
Original residence: Riverside, Iowa  
Status: Deferred by choice, indefinitely  
Concentration: Undeclared

Would you like to display more information? Input y/n)

c_pike:dean_ugs, input: [y]

(High school: Riverside High School  
High school grade point average: 0.34  
Class rank: 894/926  
First submitted SAT I score: 2395  
Second submitted SAT I score: 2400  
First submitted ACT score: 36

Would you like to display the applicant’s police record? Input y/n)

c_pike:dean_ugs, input: [y]

(Loading… loading… loading… Error. Cannot load document. Insufficient memory on this mobile device. Cancel load? Input y/n)

c_pike:dean_ugs, input: [sigh]

(Error. Input not recognized.)

c_pike:dean_ugs, input: [y], input, [logoff]

x

James Kirk stood in front of a tall statue of Columbia. One white hand held a torch high into the sky, and the other grasped a branch of laurel leaves, which spread across her stomach. The marble gleamed in the morning light. The statue stood on a circular plinth in the middle of a ring of trees. Six concrete sidewalks arrayed outwards from the statue. To the right was a large white marble building with Ionic pillars to the sides, the frieze reading: Veritas Vincit. Undergrads lounged on the steps. To the left were more buildings, these of varying white granite, pink granite, and brick, all large and columned, some with wide glass porticos or panels of gleaming window.

Jim stuck his tongue out at the statue, shrugged his duffel over his shoulder, and kept walking.

Enterprise University was the top-ranked public school in the nation. Most of the students around him were wearing suits or carrying honest-to-God briefcases. Jim stared at them. He didn’t think he’d ever seen somebody in Iowa carry a briefcase non-ironically. The students either ignored him or gave him the stink eye, which he figured had to do with his incredibly dirty clothes. Was it his fault that he’d accidentally taken an unpaved road on his way in to the city? Motorcycles weren’t enclosed vehicles, after all.

He had to ask for directions to Kirk Dormitory, which was more than a little ironic. The woman he asked for help was a cheery blonde who was apparently living there as well. She pointed him across Kennedy Street, to where the dorm squatted archly between two larger buildings. Jim hadn’t thought a building could be arch before, but the dorm was so Ivy League pretentious that it made his eyes water. He skirted underneath the iron archway, up the nameplate-paved steps, and into the lobby.

The lobby was surprisingly comfortable. It had paneled oak walls and soft chairs and couches. The lamps were knockoff Tiffany, though, which seemed really unnecessary. Jim unloaded his duffel at the front desk and leaned on it, pleased that he was spreading dust over the black marble reception.

A woman with incredibly bright red hair stuck her head out of an engraved doorway. “Hello!” she said cheerily. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m checking in,” said Jim, pulling his driver’s license out of his wallet.

“Oh, excellent!” cried the woman, running forward on three-inch lime-green heels. She was wearing a tiny, tiny red dress and clutching a copy of Transactions on Aspect Oriented Software Development. “Oh and you have a state ID and everything, wonderful. Hi!” She stuck her pink-laquered hand over the desk. They shook hands. “I’m Gaila. It’s wonderful to meet you! I’m your RA.”

“Cool,” said Jim, liking her immediately. “Nice shoes.”

“Oh, thank you, they’re the spring line from Target,” said Gaila. “I’m not really a fashion plate, I just like looking good. You’re in room 170 on the very first floor—I’m only a few doors down from you! Here’s your key, and you’ll need to go by the Cooper building to get a student ID. Until then, here’s a temporary card you can use to swipe in to the dorms. They’re locked at night from eleven till six; overnight guests have to be checked in.” Gaila scooted back a little and tilted her head, looking at Jim like he was a puzzle she was trying to solve. “Let me guess… you’re undeclared?”

“That I am,” said Jim. “How’d you know?”

“The motorcycle,” said Gaila. “Also, you’re George Kirk’s son, and I’ve heard you’re a rebel.”

Jim blanched. “How did you know?”

“Apparently the university is insane and set up an alert for when you check in,” said Gaila. “Congratulations, you’re being stalked.”

“Well, that is slightly horrifying,” said Jim. “Are the deans descending imminently? Any consequences listed?”

“No more info. Just a module procedure window,” said Gaila. “Easy enough routine to install.”

“Computer science?”

“Dual major, that and human sexuality,” grinned Gaila.

“Excellent combination,” said Jim, zero percent surprised. “Okay, I’m going to go make sure they haven’t bugged my room.”

“Check the mirrors,” advised Gaila. “And let me know if you need anything! I’m on call for another four hours. Room 164 if I’m not at the desk!”

Kirk wandered down a short flight of stairs and into a corridor. There were nice Buster end tables decorating the hallway with bronze pots of fake plants and leather-bound copies of books like Anna Karenina and The Critique of Practical Reason. The room numbers had started at 138 and went up, so he figured he was heading in the right direction.

He reached the room right in time to dodge the bottle of Jack Daniels being thrown out of it at high velocity.

x

(Opening file… Please wait… File opened!

Name: Spock, Ta'chen Sha'gai  
Age: 22  
Original residence: New York City, New York  
Status: Enrolled in the School of Graduate Studies  
Concentrations: Linguistics, Biochemistry, Physics, Philosophy

Would you like to display more information? Input y/n)

k_singh:grad_advisor, input: [y]

(College: Yale University  
Concentrations: Linguistics, Biochemistry, Physics, Philosophy  
University grade point average: 4.0  
Class rank: 1/2,032  
First submitted GRE score: 800)

x

Ta’chen Sha’gai Spock was generally very efficient. He scheduled his time to the minute every day: twenty minutes of tae bo right after he woke up, eight minutes for a shower, two minutes for brushing teeth, seven minutes for dressing, three minutes for packing his bag, twenty minutes for transportation. Once he arrived at campus, he parked himself in Starbucks for exactly fifty-six minutes, because it took exactly four minutes to walk to the Linguistics 398 class he TAed for. 

But Spock did not use his cell phone for an alarm, which meant that when the power flickered, which it apparently had the night before, it reset the clock on his nightstand, deleting the 7:00 am alarm. Before that morning, Spock had had no sympathy for the undergrads that burst in, midway through the test, in pajamas and clutching the Sharpie they’d accidentally grabbed instead of a number two pencil. But now, as he stared, horrified, at the real time listed on his cell phone, he felt remorse stirring deep within him. Also panic.

“Scotty!” he hissed into the phone as he pulled on some black slacks. “Are you at school? Can you drive me?”

“Ah’ve been in Taiker for two hours workin’ on th’ laser, you know my schedule,” said Scotty. “Didja—fer God’s sake, Lee, stop changin’ th’ refraction rate—didja miss your alarm, Spock?”

Spock hung up rather than answer that. He shoved two of the right books and four of the wrong books into his bag, slipped into his loafers, grabbed a bottle of Naked Juice, and threw himself at the door.

x

(Opening file… Please wait… File opened!

Name: McCoy, Leonard Horatio  
Age: 23  
Original residence: Birmingham, Alabama  
Status: Enrolled in the Kelley School of Medicine  
Concentration: Medicine, subcategory Surgery, subcategory Psychiatry  
College: University of Mississippi  
Concentration: Biochemistry, Psychology  
University grade point average: 4.0  
Class rank: 4/3,602  
First submitted GRE score: 800)

x

“Holy shit,” said Kirk.

The bottle of Jack shattered against the wall. It was mercifully empty. A tall, fiercely blue-eyed man with dark, tousled hair came storming out of the room. “Wha’d’ya’afta to go and do that for?” he yelled at the wall. “Why? Why?”

“Okay,” said Kirk, putting his bags down very carefully and putting his hands out, palms open. “Hey. Dude. Chill.”

“Chill?” Blue-eyes shrieked, turning to look at Kirk for the first time. He was actually spitting a little. Psychotic was maybe an understatement. “My scholarship jus’ got revoked! Do ya know how much med school costs?” 

“A lot?” hazarded Kirk unwisely. Blue-eyes let out an actual roar and stamped back into the room. Kirk started after him, but the door slammed shut with so much force that the room number fell off the wall.

“Okay,” said Kirk again. “Well. They weren’t kidding about the roommates you get in college.” He gathered himself up and knocked, very tentatively, on the door. There was a grumbling shuffle inside.

“What,” growled Blue-eyes. Kirk could hear his breathing.

“I’d love to counsel you about this,” said Kirk. “Also, I’m your roommate, so could you let me in?”

“Oh hell,” said Blue-eyes, ripping the door open again. He was framed there, towering rather and taking big breaths. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Oh no,” said Kirk, going back for his bags but not taking his eyes off of the man. “No, I get it. That sucks. Can I help?”

“Are you rich?” said Blue-eyes, holding the door for Kirk, who slid awkwardly under his arm. 

“Yeah, actually,” said Kirk, dumping his bags in the middle of the room and turning around, his hands in his pockets. “How much do you need?”

Blue-eyes blinked at him. “I thought you said ‘roommate’ earlier, not ‘angel from heaven’.”

“Phrases get mixed up a lot,” Kirk offered.

“I’m Leonard McCoy,” said Blue-eyes, sticking a big hand out. “You can call me Bones.”

“Jim Kirk,” said Kirk, shaking Bones’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Bones.”

x

(Name: Uhura, Nyota Nichelle  
Age: 18  
Residence; Boston, Massachusetts  
Status: Enrolled in the School of Undergraduate Studies  
Concentration: Communications Studies, Linguistics  
High school: Boston Latin School  
High school grade point average: 3.97  
Class rank: 2/397  
First submitted SAT I score: 2360  
Second submitted SAT I score: 2400  
First submitted ACT score: 35)

x

“Dad,” said Uhura seriously. “I can get that.”

He ignored her completely and hefted the box into his arms. She hurried forward, rolling her eyes, and caught the box as he dropped it with a yell.

“What have you got in there?” her father gasped, clutching at his back with his left hand as he steadied himself against the family Explorer with his right. “Bricks?”

“You’d call them that,” said Uhura sniffily. “My favorite books.”

“You brought the hardcover versions, didn’t you?” her father grumbled, massaging his spine. “Okay. You get those. I’ll get…” He surveyed the remaining boxes nervously.

“That one,” said Uhura, pointing to a very large box somehow balanced on top of all of the others.

“It’s huge!” her father protested.

“It has my pillows in it,” said Uhura, straightening up with the box of books in her arms and practically daring him to ask why she had brought an entire oversize box of pillows. “Come on, mom’s holding the door!”

Her father grabbed the pillow box and followed his daughter to the entrance. Uhura grinned at her mom as she passed her. Her mother had her sunglasses on. She smiled weakly at her daughter. Uhura realized that her mother was trying not to cry.

Uhura and her father put their boxes down next to Uhura’s door on the first floor, room 161. Uhura was just straightening up to go back for more when the door opened and her roommate came out.

“Need any help?” Gaila asked enthusiastically. “I just got off desk duty and I’m FULL of energy!”

“Uh,” said Uhura warily. “Sure? Dad hurt his back this morning and I’m pretty sure mom’s too emotional to carry bookshelves.”

“I’ll be right there,” said Gaila, waggling her finger in Uhura’s face. “Need shoes.” She disappeared back into the room.

“She’s very… cheerful,” offered her father, leaning against the wall.

“Seriously,” Nyota agreed. “And it’s nice that she’s an RA. And a junior. But I sort of wanted to have a freshman roommate, you know?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get to know tons of freshmen,” Gaila assured her, appearing as suddenly as she had left. Uhura glanced down at Gaila’s shoes and was horrified to see that they were bright purple three-inch pumps. Gaila saw where she was looking and laughed. “Haven’t unpacked my flip flops yet,” she explained. “That’s okay! I love heels.”

“You are very strange,” Uhura said.

“Thank you,” said Gaila sincerely. They started back down the hall. “So, what’s your major?”

“Linguistics,” said Uhura. She added as an afterthought, “And communications studies.”

“Neat,” said Gaila appreciatively. “I’m human sexuality and computer science.”

“You’re what?” said Uhura, but they were back outside and Gaila was introducing herself to Uhura’s mother. Uhura exchanged looks with her father, who shrugged and said, “That’s college for you.” 

After they had gotten Uhura’s things unloaded and plonked unceremoniously in her room, Uhura dropped her parents at a mall—Uhura’s mother had to get a new watch battery and really looked like she wanted to be sans Uhura before she started crying—went by Target for paper towels, clothes hangers, and the other things you always forget when you’re moving somewhere, and was nearly back to her dorm room when, as she was stopped at a red light, a man walked into her car. Hard.

She heard him exclaim and back up, making angry noises but not cursing. She rolled down her window, glancing at the light every few seconds. “Hey,” she called, putting her arm on the passenger side seat. “You okay?”

“Yes, yes, I am fine,” the man growled. He was bending over and feeling his knee, so Uhura could see his head. He had amazing cheekbones and black hair and an incredibly pale face. “I am sorry. I was in a hurry.” He straightened and jogged, antsy, to the corner, which wasn’t far away.

“Well,” said Uhura, “need a lift?”

“That would be unwise,” said the man, eyes narrowed. “Accepting gifts, including and especially car rides, from strangers is illogical and dangerous.”

“Good point,” said Uhura, digging her hand into her purse, “so take my driver’s license until we get to where you’re going. Somewhere on campus, I assume?”

“Yes, the Baker building,” said the man automatically. He paused in his jog and scowled at Uhura for another moment, then opened the door and got in the car. “Thank you,” he said mulishly, accepting her ID. 

“You’re very welcome.” She smiled. “Nyota Uhura. Nice to meet you.”

“Spock,” said the man, nodding firmly. “The light is green.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Uhura, turning away and hitting the gas.

x

(Name: Scott, Montgomery Bernard  
Age: 21  
Residence: Bismarck, North Dakota  
Status: Enrolled in School of Undergraduate Studies  
Concentration: Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering  
High school: Saint Mary’s Central High School  
High school grade point average: 4.0  
Class rank: 1/92  
First submitted SAT I score: 2380  
Second submitted SAT I score: 2355  
First submitted ACT score: 34)

x

Lee was a great guy, he really was. He had these painfully earnest eyes, and although Scotty was almost completely heterosexual, but he did know that Lee also had this way of wearing a suit like it was his mantle or crown or something. (Lee was a government/engineering/philosophy major, which broke Scotty’s mind, and which also explained the suits.) Lee was also pretty smart. He could do math like nobody’s business. He’d figured out how to fix an F-16 that one time. Apparently he had actually read Locke, which Scotty thought was just masochistic, but also, yes, pretty impressive. 

The point was that Lee, although he was a great guy (he really was), was shit at application. So it was as a last resort that Scotty had asked him to monitor the refraction rate on the levitator laser they’d been working on while he’d answered Spock’s call (and also gotten a sandwich, but that was like breathing to Scotty; inconsequential and constant yet entirely necessary). When Scotty returned, he’d found Lee standing helplessly next to the chunk of iron they’d been testing the gravitational lensing on. It had melted into the ceramic test area.

“Sorry,” said Lee, doing that crease with his eyebrows that made women either faint or offer to bring him things, like ice cream or their souls. Scotty pulled the shreds of his heterosexuality together and growled at Lee to go find the lab manager. Lee slunk off. Scotty stared at the test area in some despair. He ate his sandwich. Then he stared in despair a little more. Then he went over and tried to pry the iron off of the floor. Nothing doing. The despair continued.

Lee came back, towed by the lab manager, a tall, alarmingly gorgeous blonde who wore tiny black dresses half the time and tiny red dresses the other half. She sizzled horribly at both of them for a minute before dragging them next door to liberate a blowtorch from the computer engineers. “You fix this,” she growled at them, shoving the torch into Lee’s hands. “I have more important things to do. Scotty, I’ve told you to keep an eye on Lee. And Lee, gods, you’re good at a lot of things, but practicals are not those things. Please continue with theory. Or go with government. You’d make a great politician.” She left, positively stalking in four-inch heels.

“I would make a terrible politician,” said Lee, practically putting his lip out. Scotty rolled his eyes and tried to show Lee how to work the torch, but Lee had figured it out already. He was handy enough with tools, if not practicals, and managed to get the iron off of the floor within half an hour.

Scotty spent most of the time Lee was torching the floor setting up the rest of the machinery. He was just finishing the laser pre-set when he felt his phone buzzing again. He pulled it out of his pocket to find five texts from his roommate, Christine.

The first text said, “new roommates next door are throwing liquor bottles at walls send help or pizza”.

The second text said, “new roommates are very attractive but obviously gay for each other and not me D:”.

The third text said, “have just proposed threesome to new roommates, have been removed from room forcefully by the grumpy one”.

The fourth text said, “but then the blond one came out and winked at me and said he’d Let Me Know and gave me his number :D”.

The fifth text said, “i like this school. it’s exciting.”

Scotty glanced over at Lee, who had just caught himself on fire. “That’s my line,” he muttered.

x

(Name: Chekov, Pavel Andreyevich  
Age: 17  
Residence: Washington DC  
Status: Enrolled in the School of Undergraduate Studies  
Concentration: Physics and Russian culture  
High school: The British School of Washington  
High school grade point average: 4.0  
Class rank: 1/76  
First submitted SAT I score: 2380  
Second submitted SAT I score: 2395  
Third submitted SAT I score: 2395  
Fourth submitted SAT I score: 2390  
First submitted ACT score: 36)

x

Studying the university’s master schedule, Pavel Chekov had been puzzled by a few things. Why have summer school and regular session so close to one another? He was moving in to the dormitories the same day that summer school finals were over. Regular session started exactly a week after that. He asked his father, whose doctoral advisor had gone to Enterprise University, and his father said that Enterprise University was well-known for its unique scheduling, which dated back to blah blah blah. Chekov tuned out. He was only interested in Russian history.

Obviously, he’d applied to Enterprise’s physics department first. He’d immediately been accepted into Dean’s Scholars, Ex Astra, and Physics Honors, all of Enterprise’s science honors programs. He hadn’t published a paper at sixteen for nothing, after all. 

He was wandering the Enterprise grounds the day after his parents had dropped him off at Kirk Dormitory when he saw a pale man with messy black hair sitting against a tree, his eyes closed. Chekov stared at the man for a minute. He was incredibly familiar. 

The man, apparently psychic, opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked straight at Chekov, who, to his great relief, recognized him immediately. “Mr. Spock!” he exclaimed, hurrying over. “Gospodi! I am a great fan!”

Spock looked slightly alarmed. He sat up quickly and tried to flatten his hair. “Ah, thank you,” he started.

“You postulated an accurate response about the fundamentality of the graviton for your undergraduate thesis at Yale!” said Chekov. “Atemi Wachovia said you were to be the next Feynman!”

Spock blinked. “Yes—”

“I am Pavel Chekov and it is wonderful to meet you,” Chekov proclaimed.

“Chekov?” said Spock, narrowing his eyes. “Surely not the Pavel Chekov who elaborated elegantly upon compactification as a mere high school student.”

“Yes, that is me!”

Spock eyed him. “Would you like to have lunch?”

x

(Name: Sulu, Hikaru Walter  
Age: 20  
Residence: San Francisco, California  
Status: Enrolled in School of Undergraduate Studies  
Concentration: undeclared  
High school: School of the Arts High School  
High school grade point average: 3.8  
Class rank: 8/234  
First submitted SAT I score: 2340  
First submitted ACT score: 33)

x


End file.
